Ashton gives underwhelming performance

The European Union’s new foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, delivered an uninspired and uninspiring performance before the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Monday (11 January). Several MEPs voiced exasperation with Ashton’s evasive replies, which were rich in subjunctives and poor on specifics. Laying out her priorities, she mentioned every continent except Australia and Antarctica.

The MEPs were respectful, even deferential, apart from a few members of the British Conservatives and the United Kingdom Independence Party who questioned her role in a British group advocating nuclear disarmament in the 1970s. But after her three-hour hearing, it remained unclear whether Ashton, who lacks any foreign policy experience other than a successful year as European commissioner for trade, has any particular interest in international affairs at all.

To the question whether the EU should have its own seat on the United Nations Security Council, Ashton replied: “You caught me out on an issue I don’t know about.”

Like her predecessor as foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, Ashton is accountable to national governments. But in addition, as an innovation under the Lisbon treaty, she is also a vice-president of the European Commission, and thus had to submit to a parliamentary hearing. The dividing lines are still unclear between her job and that of other commissioners such as Štefan Füle, (enlargement and neighbourhood policy), Andris Piebalgs, (development) and Rumiana Jeleva (international co-operation and humanitarian aid).

Several MEPs suggested that the separation of neighbourhood policy from Ashton’s external relations portfolio amounted to a power-grab by José Manuel Barroso, the Commission president. She rejected the charge, saying that it was good to have a commissioner dedicated to the neighbourhood.

Ashton faced several questions about the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s new diplomatic corps, whose creation is already provoking turf wars between the three institutions that are to provide its staff: the Commission, the secretariat-general of the Council of Ministers and the national administrations. MEPs are anxious to preserve their prerogatives over the EU’s external affairs budget, and Ashton provided them with reassurance. They urged her to submit her nominees for heads of EU diplomatic offices for hearings. She said that she would not – a rare display of decisiveness.

In an echo of a first exchange of views Ashton had with MEPs on 2 December, the day after she took office, her replies were sprinkled with references to “further work” that was needed before she would be able to lay out her position.

MEPs took exception to her underwhelming presentation of what her powerful new role entails and asked her to be more ambitious. Referring to her repeatedly voiced faith in the value of a discreet style of diplomacy, she said: “Quiet diplomacy does not mean that I am myself necessarily very quiet.” But this was not a rousing opener.

Fact File

CATHERINE ASHTON

High representative for foreign and security policy

Nationality: British

Political Affiliation: PES

Previous job: European commissioner for trade

Age: 53

Most typical answer:

“I don’t have a solution to this problem at the moment.”

Most unwanted offer:

Franziska Brantner, German Green: “Do you want us to reject the entire Commission if you don’t get the neighbourhood policy?”

Ashton: “The strategic objectives within the neighbourhood fall under me.”

Hollowest exchange:

Adrian Severin, Romanian Socialist: “Are you willing to work with us?”